Although Man Of Steel‘s Zack Snyder has previously said he wasn’t interested in working on Episode VII, word is spreading that he IS working on a Star Wars movie – but one that is not part of the main story (how should we refer to them? My first thought was “main sequence” vs. “out of sequence”…is that good?)

Reportedly Snyder wants to adapt Akira Kurosawa’s seminal Shichinin no Samurai (a.k.a. Seven Samurai) story into a story about the Jedi. And although there is no specific time period set, it is expected for it to fall sometime after the classic trilogy, when the Jedi are working to restore their order. In Kurosawa’s story, a village hires some masterless samurai to help them defend their harvest against bandits, but both sides have to learn the trust of the other.

I don’t know if I can see the Jedi as mercenaries for hire, though…

Trivia: The character of Obi-Wan Kenobi was loosely based on a character in another Kurosawa film, The Hidden Fortress. That character was played by Toshiro Mifune, who was also in Shichinin no Samurai (Kurosawa and Mifune worked together in 16 films) – and was once considered for the role of Obi-Wan by George Lucas.